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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28992471">a pill to crush</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellumGerere/pseuds/BellumGerere'>BellumGerere</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>FebuWhump2021, Gen, Mind Control Aftermath &amp; Recovery, Pre-Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:14:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,979</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28992471</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellumGerere/pseuds/BellumGerere</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>V doesn't love the idea of Johnny taking control of her body, but she's decided to put her trust in him. She can only hope it doesn't turn out to be misplaced.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Johnny Silverhand &amp; Female V</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'm going to try and do as many of the prompts for febuwhump as i can, and the prompt for day 1 was 'mind control,' so i figured this was close enough to fit lmao. tbh i didn't love the game itself but i like a lot of the characters and i definitely wouldn't be opposed to going back to it once they figure out some of the bigger technical issues?? in the meantime tho here's this. it takes place after that bit in chippin' in where johnny gets control and he's like "time to go crazy go stupid" in her body. (there's some bits of game dialogue in here, but i reworked it a bit from the original, so the context is different.) also you can definitely read this as pre-romantic relationship but it isn't enough for me to feel like it needs a tag, at least in this chapter -bel</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time she wakes up after Johnny takes control of her body, she takes him at his word when he tells her what happened. There’s no reason for him to lie to her, after all—it’s not like he can do much without her, though that seems to be changing every day, a though that scares her more than she wants to admit. Despite everything, she’s still not entirely sure he can be trusted. She’s standing on the edge of—something—and it would only take one more slip to send her over that cliff, to be trapped inside her own body, to vanish completely. She wonders, once or twice, if he feels the same way, and dismisses the thoughts as quickly as they arrive. There’s no point dwelling on it, especially when she’s still not sure if she can trust him.</p><p>The second time, she desperately wishes she could remember everything; the little snippets that show up in her mind unprompted are only enough to make her worry more, to make her grit her teeth against the waves of nausea that fight to overtake her. There’s not a bone in her body that doesn’t hurt, her breath stinks of liquor and vomit, and her knees, left bare by the shorts she’d been wearing when she popped the pills, are skinned and bloody. She can barely stand without throwing up, and it’s only Delamain that gets her back to her apartment without further incident—she’s certainly in no condition to drive anywhere, not when the room keeps spinning like that. She rests her forehead against one of the TV screens in the elevator, trying to block out the noise of the city, and when Johnny materializes out of the corner of her eye, she ignores him, just as she had when she woke up. They have nothing to say to each other, not anymore.</p><p>That doesn’t stop him from trying, though. Once or twice, at first, she cuts him off with a glare or a harshly whispered “shut up,” but halfway through the cab ride back she just stops trying. Let him talk, for all she cares. He may be in her head, but that doesn’t mean she has to listen. If she’s lucky, she thinks as she shoves open the door to her apartment, she can shower before she passes out again, wash off the residue of whatever the <em>fuck</em> he did to her body. Maybe he’ll leave her alone long enough to get the sleep she so desperately needs, and when she doesn’t feel like every movement will send her crashing down, they can get this argument over with.</p><p>V’s never been lucky, though, and barely ten seconds after she gets into the shower, the hot water burning her skin and only just starting to soothe the ache of her muscles, she sees a flicker over by the sink. He’s being courteous, she supposes, trying to block them off from each other so she can at least pretend she has some privacy in this situation, though it’s just as much of a joke as the rest of their relationship; she has little doubt now that he’s seen all there is to see. Still, the gesture is appreciated, though she’d rather die than tell him that.</p><p>“You gonna say something anytime soon?” he asks, and she ignores him, focusing instead on trying to finger-comb the knots out of her dark hair, which, she’s beginning to realize, she really should have done <em>before</em> she stepped under the water, because whatever she’s doing now feels like it’s only making it worse. The thought that this is a salient metaphor for everything else going on in her life makes her let out a huff of laughter, but she regrets it when his head turns in her direction. She looks away before their eyes can meet, giving up on her hair altogether in favor of washing the dried blood from around her scrapes. The pains caused by her movements are impossible to push aside, so she grits her teeth against the groans that threaten to escape, and surreptitiously watches him watch her.</p><p>It doesn’t deter him, though; her silence never has, and so when he repeats the question, louder this time—as though the slightest little noise isn’t making her head pound and her vision blur—she snaps. “No.” Her nails dig into her leg next to where she’d been scrubbing so hard that she’ll probably leave herself with even more marks if she keeps on. “Not until you have something appropriate to say. An <em>apology</em>, maybe.”</p><p>“C’mon, don’t be like that.” She rolls her eyes, wishing for a brief moment that there were no wall between them so that he could fully understand just how angry she is; he’ll be getting glimpses through the relic, certainly, but not enough. “Had no idea the pills would lay you out like this.”</p><p>“Pretty sure the pills didn’t do <em>this</em>.” She gestures at herself, wide and sweeping enough that there’s no way he won’t have caught it even if he’s being courteous, or his definition of it, anyway. “Besides, if you hadn’t chased ‘em down with who knows what…” Her hand lands against the tiled wall with a loud smack, and it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Her stomach roils; she takes harsh breaths through her mouth in an attempt to calm it, but it only just works, and she can taste acid at the back of her throat. “You should be the one hungover right now.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, life ain’t fair.”</p><p>“You don’t have to tell me that.” Speaking is too much for her, and she’s barely able to drop to her knees before she’s sick on the shower floor, though luckily not much comes up; the worst of this, along with most of what happened last night, remains a mystery to her, and she thinks she likes it that way. “Sure picked the right moment to bolt outta my body,” she says once she’s stopped heaving, collapsing back against the wall and pulling her knees to her chest. The space she makes with her forehead resting on them, arms wrapped around herself, is dark and quiet—for now, at least—and she thinks it might not be so bad to stay here for a few hours, maybe let herself doze off under the water, though she’d be in for a rude awakening when it turned cold.</p><p>It takes a minute for Johnny to respond, and she can’t decide if it’s out of annoyance or an uncharacteristic show of concern, maybe even remorse. He’d been…different at the hotel, when he’d given her his tags, and now she feels like a fool for thinking that meant they’d finally reached some kind of agreement. An uneasy truce, for as long as they coexisted in her body. “Ought to be happy I left at all.”</p><p>“Oh, I am.” She can feel his stare, though she doesn’t look up to see if he’s actually watching her. He’s impenetrable at the best of times, and this certainly isn’t that. “Can’t you tell how happy I am right now?”</p><p>“Yeah, real obvious. Just a fuckin’ ray of sunshine.” She doesn’t bother to dignify that one with a response, just tips her head back against the cold tile wall. She’s not as clean as she wanted to be—or, at least, she doesn’t feel like it—but it’s enough, for now, if she can get herself off the floor. It takes a few minutes, but she manages, leaning forward with one hand against the wall and one on the shower handle, turning it off. Her hair drips onto the ground, and she doesn’t relish the thought of getting into bed with it wet and tangled like this, but what else is there to do? She won’t make any progress about Smasher until she hears back from Rogue, and as for everything else…well, none of it seems important now. Not as important as collapsing in her own bed and sleeping for twelve hours.</p><p>She has enough left in her to wring most of the water out of her hair, to throw on a clean pair of underwear and the first oversized t-shirt she grabs from her closet. Johnny disappeared several minutes ago, and if she’s lucky, he won’t come back, not until she’s better equipped to talk about this. Just as her head hits the pillow, though, she feels him—she refuses to open her eyes again, even though she’s shuttered all the windows so the sunlight won’t sting quite so much, but there’s no mistaking his presence, not when she’s grown so used to it. There’s a difference between when he materializes and when he doesn’t; in the latter instances she can barely feel him at all, though the longer it takes to remove the relic, the less likely that will remain true.</p><p>“V—”</p><p>“<em>Don’t</em>.” She cracks one eye open just a slit to see him sitting at the foot of the bed, only a few inches away from where she’s curled in on herself. He’s still wearing those damned aviators, so she can’t tell through her blurry vision whether he notices her looking or not. She doesn’t know what, exactly, he sees whenever he shows up like this, but her curiosity is drowned out by anger and exhaustion. “I can’t listen to any more of your <em>fucking</em> excuses right now. You told me you were going to meet with Rogue. That’s it. Not do—god, I don’t even want to know what you did. Do you know what that’s like? Having these holes in my memory? Being a spectator in your own body? And don’t say shit about being in my head, either. That’s different and you fucking know it. So unless you’re going to offer an actual apology for all of this, it’d be wiser for you to shut your mouth.”</p><p>V’s never been used to quiet, not really; her upbringing never allowed for it, and merc work was rarely of the silent variety. But this, the hush that falls over the room when she stops talking, is oppressive—it rings in her ears, bearing down until she feels as though she can’t move with the weight of it. She doesn’t know what she expected—an argument, maybe—but it certainly wasn’t this, the calm before the storm of a bigger fight she can see looming on the horizon.</p><p>She thinks she hears him say “I’m sorry” right before she passes out. But, as always with Johnny, she can’t be sure.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>there's going to be another chapter of this at some point that's the 'visiting his grave' bit, and i'm hoping i can work in another prompt for this event, but i don't know for sure when it'll come up - if it doesn't work out, i'll just post it on its own! in the meantime, i'll be hanging around on <a href="http://yennas.tumblr.com">tumblr</a> for the most part</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>ok this is one is a bit more game-dialogue heavy than the last one - again, hopefully that doesn't bother too many people; i just really like doing rewrites of canon stuff lol, especially adding movement to scenes that don't have a lot of it (which i feel like is true of a lot in this game, since it's all first-person). this is again for a febuwhump prompt, 'i didn't mean it' -bel</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’s not as excited about driving Johnny’s car as he seems to want her to be, mostly because she’s terrified she’s going to wreck it the second she gets on the highway. Ever since he appeared in her head, he’s been a vocal critic of her driving, so his sudden faith in her ability to not drive his car off a bridge is surprising, to say the least. His ulterior motive is revealed soon enough, though; she makes the trip to the spot where his grave is with her hands tight around the unfamiliar steering wheel, and he barely says anything the whole ride over—but he’s still <em>there</em>, in the corner of her vision, staring at her from behind those glasses, inscrutable as always.</p>
<p>By the time they get there, it’s already dark, and she has to stare down at her feet as she picks her way across the uneven ground until she finds a place to perch on top of some debris: heels up on the metal, leaning back on her elbows. Her entire body protests the movement, still aching from the fight to Grayson less than an hour ago. Still, she feels better than she had; or, at least, she doesn’t feel five seconds from throwing up again.</p>
<p>There’s nothing there, as it turns out, not that she’s surprised. Truth be told, she hadn’t expected Arasaka to get rid of his body at all—surely it had some kind of value, but she doesn’t tell him this. When he expresses his disappointment, though, something twinges in her; she knows what it feels like to float silently through the world, to leave no mark. She can’t imagine what it would be like to still be feeling it after death. “Let’s do something about it, then,” she says, pulling out her pocketknife and flicking it open. She carves his initials onto the rusted metal next to her, and the year of his death. Maybe not the best memorial. Better than nothing, a sentiment with which he seems to agree. They sit in silence for a moment—despite the darkness, she can still see him perfectly, the brightest thing in her vision. She wonders how she looks to him, and  decides she’s not brave enough to ask.</p>
<p>“Say it was my real grave.” He’s leaning forward now, elbows on his knees. “What would you write? <em>Here lies Johnny Silverhand</em>…”</p>
<p>She’s caught off-guard by the question, opening and closing her mouth as she tries to figure out how to respond. Once again, he’s uncharacteristically patient with her, not nagging her for a response as he usually does. She thinks back on their relationship, rocky as it’s been, and keeps coming back to the same thing. “…the guy who saved my life.”</p>
<p>The words hang in the air between them for an uncomfortably long time. She shifts to laying down on her back just so she won’t have to look at him; she can feel her cheeks flaming. They’ve always been frank with each other, but not like this—never has she laid out her cards so openly. “V,” he says after a minute, voice thick with something she can’t identify. “You don’t know how much I want that to be true.”</p>
<p>He comes back into her field of vision, sits down a foot or so away from her with nothing but the carving between them. She doesn’t look over, though the temptation is so strong she has to clench her jaw against it. “Listen. I realize I fucked up a lotta things. Either let down or used every last person who gave me their trust—blind, selfish coward that I was. But I’ve managed one thing for now. Not to fuck this up. What we have.”</p>
<p>“You sure about that?” The words come out before she can think about them, and she immediately wishes she could take them back; she can see how he tenses and shifts away. She sighs, sits up, runs a hand through her hair to push it away from her face. Still doesn’t look over, not fully. “Sorry. It’s—I didn’t mean that.” She scuffs the dirt with her boot. “Guess I’m still a bit shaken up about…you know.”</p>
<p>It’s her who leans forward now, mimicking his posture from earlier. When she tilts her head down, the hair she’s just pushed back falls over her shoulders, obscuring her view of him. God, she wants a cigarette. Not that she’s going to <em>tell</em> him this. “Should probably apologize for that,” he says. “Getting…carried away in your body and all.”</p>
<p>She smiles a little, hidden—hopefully—from view. “You <em>should</em>, or you <em>are</em>?”</p>
<p>“I <em>am</em>.” She can’t remember another time she’s actually heard him contrite about something. A month ago, it would have thrilled her, the idea that maybe they could coexist without the constant fighting. Now, it just makes the knowledge that only one of them can live that much more difficult to live with.</p>
<p>“Well, if that’s the case…” She tilts her head to the side in an attempt to see him, but all it does is make her hair stick to her lip gloss. “I think I can give you a second chance.”</p>
<p>“Hm.” It’s quiet again, the breeze making her shiver and run her palms over her thighs, covered only by ripped jeans. It doesn’t get cold here, not really, but it’s enough, and she can’t help but briefly entertain the thought that there might be another source. “Most people I thought were my friends…they couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as me. You’re fuckin’ closest to me by a long shot. There twenty-four seven.” The smell of cigarette smoke reaches her, and though it smells like the real thing, she wonders what would happen if she tries to snatch the thing out of his hands, smoke it herself. Probably nothing. “And yet you don’t seem to hate my living guts.”</p>
<p>“Hard to hate what you don’t have.” <em>Fuck it</em>, she thinks, pulls a pack and her lighter out of the pocket of her new jacket. Maybe now wasn’t exactly the best time for dark humor, anyway—and besides, when did she start caring what he thought of her? He certainly doesn’t seem to give a fuck what her opinion of him is. She grips the edge of the scrap metal with her left hand, watches the smoke curl in front of her, the lit end of the cigarette almost catching on her loose hair more than once, but she doesn’t feel like moving. Should probably cut it anyway. It’s not exactly the most practical thing in the world.</p>
<p>And then, as she’s ashing the cigarette, she feels it—skin, warm against her own. A hand covering hers. She freezes, breathing shallow. It shouldn’t be possible, but hell, none of this should be. He’s right, though: they know each other better than anyone else, and he is, ironically, the only person who’s really been there for sure since Jackie died. It doesn’t explain the way her heart pounds in her chest, or how her free hand shakes, how her entire body feels warm. She ignores everything else, laces her fingers with his. They don’t talk after that. For now, this is enough.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>would really love to do more with these two in the future, but that probably won't happen until i replay the game, which won't be for a while since i want to wait until they've fixed most of the major bugs. in the meantime i will just keep Thinking about them lol</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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